AEW: Britt Baker on Online Backlash Over Her Black Eye AEW Shirt, All Access Ratings, More News

Britt Baker Comments on Being “Very Surprised” Over Backlash to Her Black Eye AEW Shirt

Sports Illustrated held a recent interview with Britt Baker. One of the topics discussed included Baker’s thoughts on the online backlash over her black eye photo AEW shirt and the differences in reactions compared to her initial posting of the photo on social media.

“I was very surprised. When I posted the picture of my black eye on social media, it got almost 100,000 likes [and comments saying] that I’m tough and I’m a badass and, ‘Wow, this girl, she’s strong.’ It was empowering. But then when it went on a shirt, it was really problematic, and that was so confusing to me. Because why? If I’m on a shirt with a black eye, why does that make me weak? Why does that make me a victim? But if a man, or Chris Jericho, had a black eye, they’d be tough and they’d be a badass.

To me, it’s showing the internal narrative that people are saying about women—and that’s that we’re not as strong or as tough as the men, and that’s the real problem here. It’s not a black eye on a T-shirt. Sometimes I do get hurt. I’ve broken my leg, my wrist, my nose—and guess what? Now I have a black eye and I signed up for that. I’ve actually been telling the makeup artist, ‘Don’t cover up my black eye.’ Because I think it’s empowering, because I’m tough. You should see the other girl.”

---

AEW All Access Ratings – May 3, 2023 – Up

Wednesday’s AEW All Access drew 308,000 viewers on TBS, up from last week’s 299,000 viewers.

It also drew a 0.09 rating in the 18-49 demographic, same as last week’s rating. It was ranked #35 in the Top 150 shows for the night.

More Wednesday ratings: Showbuzz Daily

---

AEW News & Notes

As noted before, AEW recently hired former Fightful personality Will Washington to be their new Director of Wrestling Administration. Fightful Select reported that the rumors of Washington taking over Leva Bates’ backstage job are not true and instead this is a newly created position for him in the company.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that Renee Paquette’s The Sessions with Renee Paquette podcast is currently on hiatus due to Paquette’s deal for her podcast series had recently expired and she did not come to terms for a new deal. Paquette has not aired a new episode for her podcast series since April 20th.

Former Ring of Honor talent Cheeseburger, also known as World Famous CB, reportedly was in attendance backstage at this past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show in Baltimore, Maryland, according to Fightful Select.

AEW filed a trademark for “AEW Games” on April 28th for video game-related purposes to the United States Patent and Trademark Office. AEW also filed trademarks for “Dynamite,” “Collision,” “Rampage,” “All Out,” and “Revolution” on the same day for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes.

In a recent interview with Monopoly Events, Adam Cole gave his thoughts about AEW’s upcoming All In event at Wembley Stadium and his current goal of challenging for the AEW World Championship at the event. Cole stated “One of the best things about AEW is there are so many countless possibilities of these absolutely incredible matches that could happen. In regards to the Wembley show, I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited for a show in my entire life. This will certainly be the biggest show I’ve ever been involved in. When you look at all these possible matchups, I think about me against Jay White could be cool, me against Kenny Omega would be something I’d really like. At the end of the day, regardless of who the opponent is, if I could challenge for the AEW World Championship at All In, that’s all I’m focused on.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent episode of the Grillin JR podcast, co-host Jim Ross stated that he is currently interested in the idea of hosting a refereeing seminar in the future for AEW’s referee crew to help improve their work in the company and get rid of the bad rep they have with fans and others online. Ross stated “I’d be interested in doing a referee seminar someday down the road. For the right money (Ross laughed). Yeah, why not? I refereed for a long time and that’s how I started. The reason I got so motivated about being a referee — that was on my mind all along but it was a way to get more pay. The more work you did, the more money you made and as you (Conrad Thompson) know, we’re both on the same page on this deal, it’s all about the bottom line and how much money did we make and without sounding overly capitalist or whatever, yeah, referee, it’s a key position. They can screw up a match real good and I just think our guys get an unfair rap sometimes. But, if you look at what they’re doing, they’re working their ass off and that’s where it starts.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)